Server 5.5 & FMP 6 slow

[Veqtor]

Sorry if this has already been posted but i couldn't find a solution. We recently ported our company databases from Server 3 (running on a Mac OS 8.6) to Server 5.5 and our clients machines from FM Pro 4.1 to FM Pro 6. It has been working fine for about a month with 10-15 users, but a few days ago we started to notice drastic slow downs on accounting databases (with lots of calculations). I've heard that server 7 deals with this by doing calculations on the server side but does anyone know a temporary fix for server 6. Could I purge something on the server? Does it keep history files of transactions or something that should be cleared, like Internet Explorer's history files? I read on another post that scripting the calculations would speed things up, but I'd rather avoid that because there are lots of them and it would be faster to do the server 7 upgrade, which we are putting off for the moment because of the amount of work we anticipate it would be. I already tried to increase the buffer size but it didn't make any difference.

Any help would be appreciated.

[Ender]

Overall speed is determined by many factors: The server's processor, hard drive speed, installed RAM, and other programs that are running, the speed of the network, the speed of the workstations, the structure and design of the databases, and the number of users.

There's no obvious reason why you would experience a sudden slowdown; adjusting the cache settings might help. You can read recommended settings in FMI's Best Practices white paper:

http://www.filemaker.com/downloads/pdf/fms_best_practices.pdf

If speed issues are across the board, for all files with all workstations, then look at the server and network. If it's just slow in a few specific parts of the database, then it's probably something with the design or structure of the database.

[stanley]

Veqtor:

You don't say what platforms you're running on, but a fairly common cause of FMS slowdown is that another application/process is running on the server box, or (on the Mac) FMS is not in the foreground (i.e., the Finder icon is in the top right, rather than the FMS icon.) Either one of those will bring FMS to a hideous slowdown.

You should definitely read the Best Practices white paper; it will give you many clues regarding where the problems may lie.

-Stanley

[mike72]

I am having the same problem with 5.5 and 6 unlimited. The FM6 is on a 3.4ghz P4 with 4gigs of RAM, and nothing else running. It happens on a mac G4 as well. It is frustrating to have to restart the program, or worse yet, realizing that FM has crashed or slowed to an almost screeching halt. FileMaker has no answer except "check for patches?" or "restart the computer." Now I have read here other posts that claim FM 7 is slowing down as well.

Anyone have any other experiences/ideas?

[Will]

Mike -

I had a similar problem a month or so ago running Unlimited 5.5 on Windows 2000 Server/IIS. FM would lock using 99% of the processor. I set up an alert under Windows to log an event whenever the FM processor hit 99% - after reviewing the logs I noticed it occured at exactly the same time 3 times a day - it must have been some type of network-related event but I never figured it out. The problem disappeared on its own. A few years ago this also happened - at that time it was due to a new version of Netscape - as soon as I connected to my site with that version of Netscape it froze FileMaker. You might try setting an alert to see if that gives you any clues.

Will

[Veqtor]

Thanks to everyone who replied. I discovered that i had left something running (app to show system useage) in the foreground and closing it seemed to bring things back to normal.

Sorry for taking so long to post this; things have been busy round here lately. But i'd also be interested in hearing of people's experiences with Server 7. We have a copy but i haven't got round to setting it up yet and right now accessing an FM7 solution over the network peer-to-peer is very slow.

Thanks again

Veqtor